Doctor works for less, finds more reward

Physician leaves a lucrative practice to care for the needy in a county clinic in Ford Heights and finds her love for medicine renewed

March 30, 2007|By Jo Napolitano, Tribune staff reporter

Dr. Judy Frigo, head of the Cook County medical clinic in Ford Heights, could leave the blighted town for early retirement or to rejoin her former partners in a lucrative private practice in Hinsdale.

But the patients, such as the 70-year-old diabetic who sometimes walks 3 miles to the clinic, keep her coming back.

"I used to take care of CEOs downtown," Frigo said. "Now it's time to care for the people sleeping in their doorways."

Frigo, 59, has worked at the Cottage Grove Health Center since 2003. She left private practice in 2000, trading a hefty paycheck and job security for county budget cuts and ever-present uncertainty, with the intention of helping the underprivileged. She eventually landed in Ford Heights, a community she's grown to love.

Surrounded by housing projects called "Beirut" and "Nam," she barely shudders when she hears the crack of gunfire at night after she has once again ignored the security guard's warning to leave.

"When you take care of the people in the community, you see them in a different light," she said. "You see the gangbangers, but you also see the little old ladies and the little old men too."

Don Rashid, a spokesman for the Cook County Bureau of Health Services, said many doctors have left the comforts of private practice to work in the county's 16 clinics "where their work, in their estimation, is more meaningful." Frigo said Cottage Grove -- with its skeleton staff and packed waiting room -- has rekindled her love of medicine. Simply put, she's truly needed here. She's not just caring for those she calls the "worried well."

"Now when I see a patient, they really have very pressing medical issues," she said.

Her work is more emotionally demanding, too, as she tries to help patients whose lives are so very different than what she encountered in affluent suburbs. One of Frigo's patients has buried three of her four children.

"No mother needs to see her 16-year-old gunned down before her eyes," Frigo said.

Despite recent surgery on her left foot, Frigo scoots through the clinic's hallways, ignoring pleas from staffers to stay off her feet. Her own doctor told her not to come back to work so soon. She was calling patients from her bedside, she said, so why not just come in, especially because some of them struggle so hard to see her.

Many of the clinic's patients don't have cars and rely on buses or family members to get to her door. She has seen them trudge, children in tow, through the snow to keep appointments.

With the pep of a young Peace Corps volunteer and the audacity of a '60s-era rebel, Frigo wears a pin on her pale gray doctor's coat that reads, "Cut Waste, Not Services," a jab at officials who put the clinic on the chopping block before deciding it should be spared.

The clinic's waiting list is more than 70 pages long. It includes hundreds of names with appointments scheduled 10 months out.

"Our front desk has called some on the list only to be told the patient has already died," she told the Cook County Board while fighting to keep the place open.

About 45 percent of patients pay just a few dollars per visit, a sliding fee based on their income, a hospital administrator said. About 28 percent are on Medicaid and the remainder are on Medicare, pay out of pocket or have insurance. The clinic served nearly 10,000 people in 2006, about 1,000 more than the year before, she said, adding that about 43 percent of all patients live below the poverty line.

Dr. Gary Lipinski worked with Frigo for 13 years. Lipinski, now regional vice president of Medical Staff Services for Adventist Midwest Health based in Hinsdale, had hoped Frigo would end her career at the Hinsdale practice. Still, he said, the change suits her.

"She's much happier in what she's doing now," Lipinski said. "If you feel you're really making a difference. It makes the work less stressful."

It's an intellectual challenge too. Frigo has treated ailments at the clinic she hasn't seen before. Some come from eating uncooked foods, others from "bugs and worms we don't see in this country."

And it's not just the uniqueness of the ailments, but the level of progression that's different from what she saw in the suburbs.

"We see things much farther along because it hasn't been caught as quickly," she said. "We are seeing the sickest of the uninsured out here. Once you do this kind of medicine, it's hard to go back."

But it was a rough winter.

Frigo and many of her colleagues received pink slips from the county in late February. The dismissal letters were rescinded days later, attributed to a "computer glitch." But if morale was low, the letters made it worse.

Pharmacist Pamela Jones said Frigo is a strong community advocate, noting that she organized a walking group to keep local residents active.

John Dodson, 60, a disabled Vietnam veteran, said Frigo saved his life.

She diagnosed his diabetes -- undetected by other doctors -- and recommended that he see a psychiatrist after his daughter was killed and he and his wife adopted the daughter's seven children.

"I was having some real issues after my daughter was murdered," he said. "If it wasn't for [Frigo], I don't think I'd be here."

Patients said Frigo falls behind a bit in her appointments because she gives one-on-one attention. They'd rather wait an extra half-hour to see her than forgo that kind of treatment.

Andrea Simmons, 55, has high blood pressure, constant pain in her knees and no insurance. She has come to the clinic for four years, since being laid off from her job at a Chicago rehabilitation center. She gushes about Frigo.

"She sits down with you and she listens," said Simmons of Chicago Heights. "She does simple things, too, like put salt outside because she doesn't want her patients to slip on the ice. She's a rare bird."